We are happy to announce that Please Don’t Tell My Parents I’m a Supervillain is definitely getting a sequel!Roberts has agreed to writing book 2, titled At Least I Didn’t Blow Up Our Moon, and is already hard at work on development. With only a few chapters finished, it will still be months before ARC’s are out, but you will definitely be getting a lot more of Penny, Ray and Clare! In fact, Richard and the lovely representatives from CAA have sights on a third novel as well, rounding out the story of Penny into a nice trilogy that follows her into adolescence. Will Penny stay a Supervillain or will she finally resolve herself to the more conventional superhero ways of her parents…

You can find an excerpt from the sequel here, and keep an eye out for first chapters, Richard has promised to give us a little taste of Book 2 soon.

Thank you from Richard and Curiosity Quills Press for your support and reviews, they have made this all possible!

While we agree that huge steps have been made to promote badass females in modern times, we kind of agree with PolicyMic on the still cracking glass ceiling of superheroines. Says Noah Gittel of Policy Mic yesterday,

“Black Widow is an assassin who has worked for the KGB and S.H.I.E.L.D., but she’s just a woman who knows how to fight. The same goes for Jennifer Garner’s Elektra or Anne Hathaway’s Selina Kyle (aka Catwoman) in The Dark Knight Rises, both of whom are fierce fighters and smart as a whip but still are bound by the laws of nature.

In some ways, these films paint a progressive picture of gender relations, and they could provide important role models for the next generation of women; but without superpowers, these strong, independent women will always be second-class citizens to the male superheroes. Despite Black Widow’s ability to kick ass and take names, she is never really a formidable threat. She never fights anyone with superpowers because if she did, she would lose.

More significantly, Black Widow remains an object of the male gaze so that her real power can always be compartmentalized by the young men in the audience. Clad in skintight black, she is closer to a BDSM fantasy than a genuine threat to the male hierarchy, and the way the camera objectifies her — particularly in that opening sequence where the camera lingers at ass-level as she walks away — ensures that she never really challenges the traditional gender roles that we have become accustomed to seeing on film.” [Full Article]

In Supervillain, Penny is the protagonist, and arguably the most powerful of her three friends. It’s also science-based, one of the fields that has consistently been male dominated in the past. While Hermione is known for her brainiac status, my mind shifts to the series Arrow on CW and it’s female computer genius, Felicity Smoak. Felicity is a science wiz, a computer hacker pro (though she would probably scold me because ‘no one says hacker anymore’), and a beautiful woman. She assists Arrow/Oliver Queen and many times is the reason behind his success. She also demonstrates many of the same love-triangle quirks of many female superheroes, including Penny, but that never stiffles her skills or determination!

Do you think Please Don’t Tell My Parents I’m A Supervillain’s Pennt Akk can give that ceiling a little shove in the right direction? Does it need that shove, or are we already there? Tell us your thoughts in the comments!

Rahne Sinclair, AKA Wolfsbane, from the very early run of New Mutants. She was a very shy, abused child terrified of her own powers, and I found her empathetic. I still find that version of her empathetic, but Marvel bizarrely decided during one plot sequence to grow her up, put her in an aggressively sexual relationship with a guy she hadn’t known before, and greatly alter her appearance. The original character had been thrown away, and that’s when I dropped superhero comics for a long, long time.

I liked most of the New Mutants a lot, actually, and their back stories were discreetly treated but in some cases very dark. Like, worse than in anything I’ve written dark. I admire both the characters that created and the delicacy with which it was kept in the background. The team got butchered, literally and metaphorically, which was sad.

Let’s see. The Teen Titans cartoon version of Raven is proooobably #2. I love how faithfully they portray her struggle and her tragedy, and I love her physical design, and I love her voice.

Hmmm! Not specifically that I can think of. I snuck two of my characters from City of Heroes in.

But ‘generally’, maybe. I haven’t read superhero comics in a long time, but back around the time dirt was invented I was pretty into them. In particular, I read the New Mutants before Marvel, uh, decided to get edgy and killed half the cast and altered the rest into the exact opposite of their original concepts. Even if I wasn’t specifically thinking of them, there’s no doubt they’re part of how I view superheroes today and must have some influence.

More recently I have widely enjoyed the DC superhero cartoons, from Batman: The Animated Series on. Teen Titans was my favorite of the lot. All this stuff mixes around in a writer’s consciousness, even when it’s not deliberately referenced.

We’re proud to announce thatRichard Roberts‘PLEASE DON’T TELL MY PARENTS I’M A SUPERVILLAIN is officially being represented by the Creative Artists Agency (CAA) – the biggest film/tv rights agency in the world! Are you as excited as we are!?

While it’s still going to be a while before we’re watching this on the big screen, we’re hoping you’ll share with your friends and keep the buzz going and catch the vision of JJ Abrams and the rest of the amazing directors wih CAA!

Who would you cast as Penny, Ray and Claire?

If you still haven’t read Please Don’t Tell My Parents I’m a Supervillain, then now you have no excuse! For today only,the eBook is on sale for 99 cents, so even if you have 99 problems, buying this book is NOT one of them!

We thought the best way to introduce the official fan page of Please Don’t Tell My Parents I’m a Super Villain was with a note from the author, and what better one than this blog host showing the real Richard Roberts the way we all know him best, humble, funny, and entertaining.

‘I am completely dumbfounded. I think I went from being my publisher’s worst selling author to best selling author in a week. Please Don’t Tell My Parents I’m A Supervillain is selling as well as the best known children’s books, and its sales numbers have kept going up and up. I’m in about the top 1% of Amazon ebook sales now. My publisher thinks they can bring that up further.

I’m reeling. I’ve spent large portions of this week having my friends go ‘Oh, your numbers shot way up again today’ and wandering around bumping into things and giggling the rest of the day.’

For more posts about Roberts many endeavors and personal stories, check out his blogFrankensteinbeck.blogspot.com! (p.s. Richard, I think your literary nerd is showing!)